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Talk:Reference works
Alphabet Alphabetical order might be better, seeing as this list has the possibility to grow rather long. --Harry 11:13, 3 Dec 2003 (PST) Star Trek reference books (moved from Memory Alpha:Ten Forward) A quick question: should we use info frm Star Trek reference books (Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, Star Trek: Star Charts, etc...) be used to elaborate more on certain things such as Antimattter Injector for example, and other things, like sectors? Tholian2000 15:58, 26 Dec 2005 (UTC) :Only if the subject was referenced in canon, otherwise the information does not receive an own article, but may be mentioned in on the source's page, as it is done on Spock's World for example. -- Kobi - [[ :Kobi|( )]] 18:56, 26 Dec 2005 (UTC) ::Formatting non-canon separately from canon should follow this example: :::The antimatter injector was used aboard Deep Space Nine. ( ) ::::The antimatter injector's inner workings were depicted in the ''Star Fleet Technical Manual, where it was mentioned to have an output in 3.7 gigacochranes.'' ::This way the canon data is kept before the episode citation, and all of the rest is italicized and indented. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk ::: Or in the case of extemely or distractingly large chunks of (italic) text we add it to a "Background" subsection. --Alan del Beccio 11:51, 28 Dec 2005 (UTC) Starlog Published Official Star Trek Magazines Where would the best place for the series specific magazines that Starlog published? The cover says "The Official Magazine Series" and inside lists an exclusive Paramount license. I have 1 TNG, 3 DS9 and one for ST:6 so I don't know if they ever did one for VOY. Should we do these simillar to ? --AndreMcKay 04:54, 18 July 2006 (UTC) :I don't see why not. It sounds like they're all more or less the same thing (in the grand scheme of things), no? -- Sulfur 12:07, 18 July 2006 (UTC) :: I just noticed your response. I will start work on the page. I only have 5 mags, so someone will have to fill in the rest. That is why I love Memory Alpha!--AndreMcKay 05:44, 25 July 2006 (UTC) This would make a great sub-portal I think this would make a great sub-portal of Portal:Star Trek, instead of just a page like this which isn't really an article. --Bp 09:01, 15 January 2007 (UTC) Source for these lists Can we identify a source for these lists? I ask since there is a manual not listed here, called "Starfleet Dynamics" is supposed to have been published by some of the production staff from . If so, then that would be a licensed work as well. What is the authority for saying what is licensed and where can be find a list to back-up what is on the page right now? -FC 02:28, 9 June 2008 (UTC) :Just because "staff from a real movie" may have worked on it, that would not automatically make it a "licensed" work. You know what would make it a licensed work? A license from Paramount (literally, a contract granting a copyright permission). Following your logic, Star Trek: Of Gods and Men would be licensed just because Tim Russ is involved. It's not. --TribbleFurSuit 02:48, 9 June 2008 (UTC) You again! :-) You seem to have missed my question. "What is the source for the licensed work lists that is displayed on this page?" Once an extra-MA source is found, we can see if Starfleet Dynamics is listed on it and add an appropriate article is so called for. We also need a source for this article since right now its actually uncited and it is in fact a very important policy page. -FC 02:54, 9 June 2008 (UTC) :Your implicit question was "Can I add ''Starfleet Dynamics if I have a source?"'' and the answer is, No, because Starfleet Dynamics is a fan work, it is not licensed by Paramount. In specific, direct answer to your explicit question "what are the sources for these lists?", well, think about what the answer is to "what are the sources for the TOS Season 1 list?". The books are their own references. That's how this page was created, and, also how the page where you can already find what MA has to say about Starfleet Dynamics was created. It's right below the infamous Klingon Covert Operations Manual. --TribbleFurSuit 03:18, 9 June 2008 (UTC) For a second time...that wasn't my question...I have absolutely no plans to write an article about Starfleet Dynamics. My question is what is the source for this article? Where did the person/persons who wrote this article get this information from? Did they look on the inside cover of the books? Did they go to an external website? Is there a published memo from Paramount stating what is and what is not licensed? This has nothing to do with Starfleet Dynamics and it certianly has nothing to do with the Klingon Manual which I already stated on that talk page should be merged. I'm just asking for a source to this article. -FC 03:24, 9 June 2008 (UTC) :You said "there is a manual not listed here, called "Starfleet Dynamics"". Well, can you blame me for thinking you wanted it listed here? After all, this Talk: page is for discussing contents of the page it's attached to. And can you blame me for answering your actual question as asked and not understanding what was inside your mind? :I'm sorry, it's clear now that I don't have the answer you want. But I have two more ideas for you because I'm still interested to offer what help I can. You might try looking in the revision history and find out who the actual contributors are and ask them personally. OR: Look for a given work at Memory Beta and at ST:EU. Those people know what they're doing, and if you find it at one of those sites, consider that as having backed up the contents of this page and the Fan Publications page too. :I most certainly do understand that this isn't related to the KCOM. I was just trying to help you find the Starfleet Dynamics listings, not rub your nose in anything. My "infamous" comment was just supposed to acknowledge that we've talked about it before. --TribbleFurSuit 03:58, 9 June 2008 (UTC) :::To answer your question (and this is my understanding): :::A book is licensed if on the copyright page it has a note like "This book is published by Pocket Books...under exclusive license from Paramount Pictures". From looking at a few I've got, it'll also have the Paramount logo. Currently, all licensed books are published by Pocket Books, so if its by them, its licensed. This can be checked on the page for the book itself, and you can find this info elsewhere online. :::Other book companies that have had a license at one time or another for Star Trek include Ballantine Books and FASA. Anything they published while having the license is acceptable. There's probably a few more; have a look on the pages we have for each publisher at it will state if they were licensed or not. – Cleanse 04:13, 9 June 2008 (UTC) :edit conflict As it turns out, there's an easy way for you to use the Internet yourself to definitively check the facts. It goes like this: there are four licensees publishing books with Paramount's blessing. Bantam Books, Ballantine/Random House, Whitman Publishing, and Pocket Books. Now, none of these publishers will publish an un-licensed work, because of the contractual conflict. So if you have a title, and you find out that it's published by one of those four, or not, then you will have discovered whether the work in question is licensed or not. Amazon is good for this. Some of the above publishers have other trademarks, for example "Wallaby Books" is really Pocket Books. Again, nothing you can't find out on the Internet. I hope it helps! Good luck. --TribbleFurSuit 04:20, 9 June 2008 (UTC) Star Trek Universe Not sure how to categorize the Star Trek Universe publication. For those unfamiliar, it was an official Paramount publication which included a Star Trek binder, and separately sold sheets of episode and character facts which could be added to the binder. Any thoughts? Not quite a book... --- Jaz 20:19, 25 May 2009 (UTC) :Sounds kinda like a build-your-own encyclopedia. — Morder 20:26, 25 May 2009 (UTC) Ya, someone uploaded a youTube video of one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8hLy_R5ZrI --- Jaz 20:28, 25 May 2009 (UTC) :Now that looks more like a Trading Card Game but without the Game...I say just classify it as a book since that is the end result. :) — Morder 20:33, 25 May 2009 (UTC) Here's the most bizarre party: in addition to the binder and the sheets, the set came with 16 Star Trek coasters! --- Jaz 20:37, 25 May 2009 (UTC) Klingon books Before I mess up anything, I ask first: The Klingon Dictionary by Marc Okrand is listed, but not his two other books (nor the tapes). Is there a reason for that? -- Klingonteacher (talk) 13:13, October 24, 2013 (UTC) :Likely just missed along the way. I believe that all of those books have articles on MA, just may have been missed along the way. -- sulfur (talk) 14:13, October 24, 2013 (UTC) Overlap between "textbooks" and reference works :Note: Initially a merge suggestion, but renamed since there seems to be overlap, but still some difference. We already have an article about reference works, an article about novels, and matching category pages. Those parts of this list that constitute "official" reference works or novels should be merged with these pages, the rest (inoffical publications) may have no place on this wiki. In any case, also needs formatting etc. -- Cid Highwind (talk) 11:35, October 20, 2013 (UTC) :It is quite appreciated that we already have an article about novels, so I will not have to make a list of them. The books intended to list here are neither reference works nor novels, but academical literature which arises philosophical/ethical, sociological, political ... discussions on Star Trek. I will make according changes soon. sibelius84 (talk) 14:50, October 20, 2013(UTC) :I have added formatting (hope I got it right?) and, where possible, interlinks to the article, as well as relabeled it to "Textbooks" (as a complement to the already existing page "Novels"). Furthermore, I have added a short "motivation" text so all the users can see what the page is for. If there are any other requirements to fulfill, just let me know and I'll be happy to take care of it. sibelius84 (talk) 16:31 October 20, 2013(UTC) :P.S.: I'm not sure how to set such a red box containing a message like "That page is still new and there is a discussion going on at the talk pages" up at the top of the page, so I just improvised a remark - sorry for the extra work, I hope I'm going to learn it in the non-distant future. sibelius84--Sibelius84 (talk) 14:47, October 20, 2013 (UTC) No need to feel sorry for any "extra work" being caused, this is what we're here for. ;) I just removed your remark from the page before seeing your comment here, because we typically don't mention whether a page is "new". What can be added instead is a disclaimer stating that a page is incomplete, by adding . This will be displayed as a small message box. If you think that this disclaimer should be on the page, feel free to add it. Another thing I notice is that all available "textbook articles" (according to the definition of this article) are currently categorized as "reference works". I'm not sure if this means that there is a considerable overlap between the two (and maybe the pages should be merged after all), or if it means that our current categorization needs work. Perhaps this becomes clearer after further edits to this article. -- Cid Highwind (talk) 15:01, October 20, 2013 (UTC) :According to my definition, reference works are works whose intent it is to explain, systematize and further illuminate the Star Trek world - 'classic' examples might be all the technical manuals or behind-the-scenes reports -, whereas textbooks rather lay their focus on phenomena that have emerged from Star Trek: philosophy, ethics, sociology, economy, and so on. There might be a few overlaps, such as Marc Okrand's Klingon dictionary or Jeff Greenwald's Future Perfect: How Star Trek Conquered Planet Earth. I think we should regularly try to decide for the one or the other - inclusion of a book in both lists only if absolutely necessary. --Sibelius84 (talk) 17:00, October 20, 2013 (UTC) ::There was already a section for these on Reference works, I've added in the rest to that list now (at least, the ones that are primarily about Star Trek, not just those that have a chapter about it). I'm also not certain that we need to (or should) document the materials from other languages, and rather leave those to MA/de, etc. -- sulfur (talk) 12:31, October 21, 2013 (UTC) :A few days ago, I was searching for serious/academical/scholarly literature on Star Trek on MA (didn't find anything, so I got the idea to create the Textbooks page), and I think maybe there will be some people searching for that sort of books on MA in the future. To those people, just including the rather serious books in the Reference Works page might look rather confusing. They might e.g. think "yeah, well, I know that there are a lot of Tech Manuals and Who-is-Who's and so on, but I'm not searching for all that stuff, I'm searching for philosophical reflections on ST". That's why I think we should keep both pages and meet a decision for the works we can't clearly assign to the one or the other article. :As for the foreign languages, you're probably right. I'll take the German textbooks out and include them in MA/de instead shortly.--Sibelius84 (talk) 12:53, October 21, 2013 (UTC) ::A "textbook" is still a reference work, though there is some argument for putting them into a sub-category of the main works. ::Aside: The Klingon Dictionary? Officially licensed, ergo "reference work". -- sulfur (talk) 13:07, October 21, 2013 (UTC) :A fitting criterion to clarify the distinction might be whether the book is potentially interesting for non-ST-fans. The books I put on the Textbooks page are all of that sort. The Klingon Dictionary, for example, is potentially interesting for non-ST-fans (linguists...). Well, to finally answer that question, you would have to read every one of those books. That's not very realistic, I know. :What I think is particularly important is the distinction from Tech Manuals and colourfully illustrated merchandise stuff. People who search some serious texts on ST should be able to use MA to find them, without being overwhelmed by merchandise. In my opinion, the fact that Star Trek is not only shallow entertainment, but (particularly in TNG) has that serious dimension deserves an own page, pointing that fact out and listing academical literature written on Star Trek. Subordinating this literature under all the merchandise stuff is, imho, less preferable.--Sibelius84 (talk) 13:32, October 21, 2013 (UTC) :::My main issue with this is that these books are not textbooks. A textbook is a book about a subject designed specifically for a course of study http://www.thefreedictionary.com/textbookhttp://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/textbook. Ascribing your own personal definition to the term is not really the best way to derive an article title, especially when it conflicts with the real definition of that term. It particularly isn't going to help people locate these sorts of titles, since they won't be looking for a "textbook". If there is consensus to break these out into a separate article, something like "academic works" or "scholarly works" would be a more suitable title. Also, the introduction on this page really needs to be toned down as well, if it is included - it reads more like an introduction to a blog post than an encyclopaedia article. :::Personally, I would merge this into reference works, since that is an all-encompassing title which is relevant to both the "entertainment" books and the "philosophical/scientific/essay collection" books, and divide relevant titles out of the "other works" section to use one of those two names. That page could probably do with a general refresh anyway, since it's rather out of date, and the divisions are unclear in parts. -- Michael Warren | ''Talk'' 15:13, October 21, 2013 (UTC) :'Academic works' or 'scholarly works' would both be fine with me. (Hey, I'm just a continental European who is teaching English as a foreign tongue, so some subtle differences might go unnoticed by me.) I tried to "tone down" the introduction by removing the two questions - I see, encyclopedia articles should not be exciting or encouraging the reader to further his or her interest in the subject ;-) Furthermore, I removed the list of German books and am now going to include them in MA/de. --Sibelius84 (talk) 15:36, October 21, 2013 (UTC) : Hi there, after all the discussion (see above) now the pages were simply merged without doing a vote? : There is one actual problem I have which has also been there before, but now is more pressing: People coming to MA in order to search for 'professional' literature on Star Trek hardly have the chance to find any. I tried the search queries "philosophy", "philosophical literature", "literature on Star Trek", and "scholarly literature" and found a lot of other stuff, but didn't get through to the Reference works site. (Even if I had, I would have been overwhelmed by merchandise). So what will we do to address this problem? Sibelius84 (talk) 17:03, November 8, 2013 (UTC) ::The two pages duplicated material -- as things stand now "Academic works" redirects to that particular section of the Reference works page. Can there be other ones in there, maybe. They weren't going to find anything by searching for those other terms before, even if the pages were separate. The issue you are driving at is not where the pages are located, it's the search engine and how we can improve things at that point. -- sulfur (talk) 17:07, November 8, 2013 (UTC)